Your One & Only(4)

“Maybe he’s Jack Zero,” a Samuel said, and everyone laughed.

“Hey, Jack!” one of the boys called. Almost immediately a chorus of calls followed, with the name being shouted by everyone in the classroom. They shouted as if testing the name out, though the more it was said, the more they took delight in jeering at the boy. His name did sound strange, Althea had to admit. Foreign and unfamiliar. Her fingers slid unconsciously to her wrist. She didn’t join in the shouting.

“Please, everyone,” Samuel-299 said. “That’s enough.”

Jack’s chest rose and fell, and then rose again.

“Sam,” the boy said, which was odd, because he was talking to Samuel-299. Nobody called any of the Samuels Sam. It seemed disrespectful, though Althea couldn’t say why exactly.

Samuel-299 looked at him sharply. “Jack? Are you all right?”

Jack wiped his nose with the back of his hand. His breath wheezed. Carson-318 snorted laughter, repeating the name Jack, mimicking the concerned way Samuel-299 had said it, though the man was too focused to hear.

“Is it an attack?”

The boy nodded. Althea couldn’t figure out what the problem was. He seemed to be having trouble breathing. Sensing something wrong, the class went silent until the only sound in the room was the whistle of air being sucked into the boy’s lungs. As she watched him struggle to breathe, the seconds moved so slowly that Althea imagined for a moment she could see them shimmering the air like heat.

Jack fumbled in his pocket, producing a plastic tube gripped in his palm. Samuel-299 touched his back.

“It’s okay,” he said to Jack. “Calm down.”

Jack put the tube in his mouth, pressed down, and sucked in. It looked like something he’d done many times before. A tension seemed to release from Samuel-299 as Jack’s breathing eased.

“What was that?” a younger Samuel asked.

Samuel-299’s eyes closed briefly before he looked up, reluctant to talk about what had just happened. “He uses that device, an inhaler, for a condition called asthma. It makes it hard for him to breathe sometimes, that’s all.”

“That’s all?” Carson-317 said, distaste showing on his face. “He’s sick. What if we catch it?”

“You can’t catch it.”

“You said he wasn’t abnormal. That looked pretty abnormal to me,” Carson-314 said.

“He’s not abnormal. He’s human, and in humans a certain amount of abnormality is, well . . . normal.”

The Carsons looked disgusted at the Samuel’s response.

Samuel-299 braced his hands on the desk and seemed to come to a decision. “You know, let’s continue this after lunch, shall we?”

“It’s too early for lunch,” someone said.

“Nevertheless, we’ll have a break,” Samuel-299 said dryly. “Everyone should go outside. Maybe you can all get to know Jack a little better.”

As Althea stood with the others, her pencil bag fell from her desk, spilling its contents. Her sisters were already at the door, so she quickly bent to gather her things. She found herself at eye level with the top of her desk, and there was Jack right in front of her, holding out one of her pencils. She froze, and then realized it was rude to stare at him. Still he waited, his hand steady and patient. She reached to take the pencil, and her sleeve rode up to reveal the scar.

One of the Carsons strode past. “Need a hand?” he snickered, as if proud of a joke she’d heard a million times before.

Althea grabbed the pencil and tugged her sleeve down. Her eyes met Jack’s, and his head tilted questioningly. Up close, his eyes startled her yet again with their pale gray.

Altheas were an observant model, so even though Jack seemed unable to commune, Althea could see in his face that he was curious, and also lonely. The other eight models relied exclusively on communing to understand the emotions of others. They would never notice the way his eyes dipped down to her hand holding the pencil, or the way he sucked his lip against his teeth.

He gave her a tentative smile. Two of his bottom teeth overlapped just a tiny bit, a distracting imperfection none of her own people had. A carved bead hung at the base of his neck on a leather string. As with everything else about the boy, this was strange too. None of the four boys in the community wore necklaces.

“Thank you,” she murmured, clutching the pencil and allowing herself to smile back.

A remaining Carson bumped into her, and then a sister returned to grab her arm and hurry her along with the rest of them. When she glanced back, she saw Jack still watching her.

Outside, the students milled about the schoolyard, unsure of what to do. The brick school was on the edge of town, bordered on one side by the stone wall that surrounded Vispera, safeguarding it from the jungle outside, the wild animals and poisonous plants. Jack leaned against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. Everyone else had clustered as far from him as possible, their feet kicking up dust from the rust-colored gravel of the yard.

The usual games and sports didn’t feel right. Activities were supposed to happen after lunch, and Jack was making everyone nervous. Althea saw her own worry mirrored in the faces of her sisters. They huddled together, their hands lightly touching hair and arms and backs. The Carsons and Samuels were in their own clusters, and then the Carsons all laughed simultaneously. They passed the Altheas and sauntered toward Jack, who pushed himself away from the wall as they came near.